Truth and Flowers
by echolock
Summary: Twelve peoples favorite flowers, and how it may have affected them.


AN: I wrote this on a whim. I have not written fanfiction for quite a while, so I hope you like. I'll probably be writing some more soon.

In any case, I hope you enjoy this.

_Naruto_

Naruto loves flowers of any kind, and he loves plants of all kinds. Of all, his favorite is the rose. Not just any rose, roses of a blood red shade, a dark crimson, so similar to the blood that will stain his hands as he continues on his path to Hokage.

Contrary to what most would believe, he does not like it for its color. He loves roses for the contradiction, that something so beautiful can hurt you so much. He finds it appropriate somehow, and never considers what it means. He loves the crimson roses especially because he feels they exemplify this contradiction.

When he one day gives one to his girlfriend, she does know the meaning behind it. She will cry and explain it to him, that the flower stands for mourning, for tears and sadness.

He will laugh and say that it is perfect for him. No one will understand what he meant by that.

_The truth is, he thinks it is perfect because of what he is. Everyday, even if only for a few seconds, he mourns that he is not human, and never will be._

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_Sakura_

Sakura loves roses, and at first this is the only thing she will admit having in common with that bane of her existence, Naruto. Or she would, if she knew it was his favorite. As it is, she never credits him with enough intelligence to even look beyond himself, his dream, and his ramen.

She especially loves pink ones, so similar to her hair, and her reason is vain. She loves it because it matches her, and she dreams that one day Sasuke will give her flowers the same shade of her hair. This never happens. Rock Lee is the one who realizes it, and she occasionally finds pink roses on her doorstep, with a note asking her to be his.

One day she will grow out of this vanity. She will always like roses, though.

_The real reason she likes them so much she doesn't remember. It's really because one day, someone handed her one and told her she was pretty. She doesn't remember it, but sometimes she'll look at a rose and think of black hair and an unsmiling face. She dies at the hands of the same man._

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_Sasuke_

Sasuke doesn't like flowers, or anything else. He did, once, but he would never admit to it anymore. One day, sometime far in the future, he will be buried in an unmarked grave, with a single flower on it.

A crimson rose, placed there by the only person left who cared, and who now knew what it meant.

_But to his dying day, there was one flower the smell of which could always call him, the same flower that his mother loved. The carnation._

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_Chouji_

Chouji has only ever really been interested in food, but being around Ino is taxing enough, so when she began bugging her team for their favorite flowers, he just said forget me nots, not really thinking about it.

And he does like them. As much as he likes any other flower. He likes them all, not preferring one over any other.

One day he will pick one, with a sad smile on his face. Marigolds. He knows what they mean, and the meaning of grief is why he picks them.

_He chose it the same day he buried two of the best friends he had ever had. One was dead, the other would be soon. He never knew._

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_Ino_

Ino knows the meanings of every flower, and can't pick. She sometimes wants to say roses, and sometimes carnations. One day she will realize that, just like Chouji, she loves them all and can't choose.

The day she receives a scarlet rose is the day she finally chooses her favorite.

_She loves it because he does, which gives it one more point in favor of it, one more than all the others._

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_Shikamaru_

Shikamaru finds it too annoying to pick one, and has always refused to give an answer, even when Ino was at her most annoying.

He will never really choose one, even in his own mind, choosing to go ahead with his apathy towards almost everything.

In the end, though, he will request to be buried with one flower, a special one. A poppy. He's not a genius for nothing, he knows the meaning, that it stands for eternal sleep.

_His last breath is taken when he's already six feet under, but he's unaware. He's fast asleep, dreaming of the sky._

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_Hinata_

Hinata likes flowers, but not much. She likes them because Naruto does, and later because she genuinely likes them. She will never choose a favorite, or at least never tell anyone.

She takes her secrets to the grave, dying a member of the now extinct branch house, the last living member of the once great Hyuuga clan. She stops talking when she realizes this, and never speaks again.

She smiled as she died, a sword through her chest, and the wild haired man behind her staring, knowing that he should have died.

_But if anyone had cared to notice, or was observant enough, they would have seen her smile every time she saw lilies, and always smelled a little like them._

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_Shino_

Shino is far too logical to ever learn to truly like anything. He appreciates flowers because his bugs do, and because they are aesthetically pleasing. Beyond that, he couldn't care less.

Even in the future, when Konoha is gone and he is dying at the gates of his clans home, he will never realize the irony that he died in the same place he was born, and surrounded by blue violets.

_He did, however, appreciate the smell of lilies._

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_Kiba_

Kiba has always loved flowers, lilies topping the list for his whole life. He never admitted it, because it wasn't a masculine thing, and he was a creature of appearances, of flash and show, so he never let anyone know.

This was part of why he liked Hinata. She always smelled like lilies.

_He killed the man who killed the one he loved with the same weapon she died on, tears pouring from his eyes. He only stopped when Naruto pulled the sword out of his hands, telling him that all he was doing was pounding dead flesh into the dirt. He stopped and turned to Hinata, and took a deep breath. It was the last time he ever smelled lilies._

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_Neji_

Neji loved the magnolia, a symbol of nobility. His arrogance allowed him to easily associate himself with it, nobility among commoners.

When Naruto beat him, he discovered that he liked it for how it looked, how it held itself. Mostly he liked the color, the whiteness, the perceived purity of it.

He was buried in a field of magnolias. He would have appreciated it.

_He died a hero's death, saving the Hokage from an attack he had not sensed. He killed all of the seven jounins before succumbing to the poison that raced through his veins._

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_Tenten_

Tenten never had time for flowers, always trying to be more than she already was, to earn respect. To prove herself.

She never realized that she already had.

_When she dies, she is buried next to her two friends, in a field of magnolias, her scrolls, now empty, buried with her._

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_Rock Lee_

Lee loves the cactus, for its ability to survive anything. It endures, just like him, and as with all things, it only grows stronger as time passes.

When Konoha falls, he laughs, and many think he has lost it. Until he opens all eight of the gates, achieving unmatched power, and single handedly decimates the first two waves of enemies over the walls.

He achieves another claim to fame, surviving the use of all eight gates. Some say it is because of his underdeveloped chakra coils that he did.

But he dies when he uses the lone ninjutsu he ever learned, using all eight gates once again to do it.

_The only part of him left was his head, and the muscles on it were locked into a smile. They buried it by his team, with a single cactus overtop._

AN: Wow, that was morbid.

Konoha was destroyed, yes, but that's a story for another day. Remind me, I'll write it eventually.


End file.
